


Narcissus, not just Echo

by wei



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 19:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei/pseuds/wei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three kinds of love</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus, not just Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the three times meme at naruto_meme. Prompt: Three times she fell in love

The first time was sudden and swift and paralyzed Hinata in the doorway of the hospital room. Hinata saw her baby sister in her mother’s arms, with her father hovering around them, and that one perfect moment would stay with her forever.

Hinata fell irrevocably in love, and with every bit of her five-year-old will, decided that even if she was resigned to be a failure, Hanabi would never be one.

\--

The second time was slow but no less inevitable. Naruto was everything she wanted to be – and more. He got up when he fell, and never gave up. Even in his weakness, he still defended the bullied and shunted aside.

He dreamed and shouted his dreams to the world until they acknowledged him.

(And maybe one day, she could claim a little of that strength as her own).

\--

The third time was an epiphany. Hinata was twenty three, and a newly minted jounin back from a brutal, tiring mission. She looked up into the mirror after scrubbing her face in the bathroom sink and saw herself. A bruise on her cheek, grime in her hair, tears and loose threads in her shirt, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she realized that she didn’t want to be anyone but herself.


End file.
